On the Same Poem 2011

On the Same Poem welcomes beloved North Carolina native Robert Morgan. The award-winning
poet, novelist, and Cornell University professor is our featured poet for Forsyth
County Public Library’s On the Same Poem Luncheon on April 19th. Professor Morgan’s
featured poem, “Audubon’s Flute,” is from his acclaimed poetry collection, The Strange
Attractor. Please bring a brown bag lunch and join us for lunch with Robert
Morgan. Space is limited. To reserve seats, call 336-703-3022 or email Candace Brennan or call Jenny Boneno at 336-703-2961, barretjs@forsyth.cc.

On the Same Poem Luncheon
April 19, 2011 at Noon
Central Library Auditorium

Forsyth County Public Library’s On the Same Poem Luncheon has become a staple of
National Poetry Month in Forsyth County. On The Same Poem, an extension of On The
Same Page—the county’s annual Community Read Project—is the shared experience of
reading and discussing a poem, selected for the occasion by the featured poet. Robert
Morgan will be reading “Audubon’s Flute” from his poetry collection, The Strange
Attractor. Over a brown bag lunch, participants will meet the young people
who win this year’s poetry contest and discuss “Audubon’s Flute,” facilitated by
discussion leaders at each table. The luncheon will conclude with Professor Morgan
answering questions from the audience. Make your reservation today!

"Audubon's Flute"

Audubon in the summer woods
by the afternoon river sips
his flute, his fingers swimming on
the silver as silver notes pour

by the afternoon river, sips
and fills the mosquito-note air
with silver as silver notes pour
two hundred miles from any wall.

And fills the mosquito-note air
as deer and herons pause, listen,
two hundred miles from any wall,
and sunset plays the stops of river.

As deer and herons pause, listen,
the silver pipe sings on his tongue
and sunset plays the stops of river,
his breath modeling a melody

the silver pipe sings on his tongue,
coloring the trees and canebrakes,
his breath modeling a melody
over calamus and brush country,

coloring the trees and canebrakes
to the horizon and beyond,
over calamus and brush country
where the whitest moon is rising

to the horizon and beyond
his flute, his fingers swimming on
where the whitest moon is rising.
Audubon in the summer woods.

~Robert Morgan
Cornell University Professor of Literature, poet and novelist

The Strange Attractor

The unfading poetic brilliance of Robert Morgan shines through these ninety-three
pieces spanning thirty-five years. Celebrated for his recent fiction, Morgan makes
obvious in this volume he was first, and remains foremost, a wordsmith of poetic
sensibilities — a craftsman of taut, forceful imagery, alert with wonder to the
mystery of what lies in plain sight.

Like Robert Frost, Morgan takes the natural world as a metaphorical base for human
projection. Much of his work is a love song to the Appalachian Mountain terrain
and a way of life all but gone: his father speaking in tongues; his mother canning
peaches; carpentry, farming, the seasons in slow motion, family history, and wind-borne
strains of music. He captures the aura around such common objects as resin, cellars,
hog-wire fence, the whippoorwill, and crickets. Infusing his poetry with mountain
idiom, even when pondering the cosmos beyond, Morgan creates lyrics with a rhythm
like rain—“to be rocked to sleep by mountains / equals the rest of heroes.

Fourteen new poems open the volume, and selections from nine previous collections
follow. Robert Morgan’s Strange Attractor grants a reader a generous overview of
an important American poet’s work.

Journey to Wild Places: Poetry/Rap/Song Contest for Young People

This year we have a Poetry/Rap/Song contest for young people in middle school and
high school. Teens in 6th through 12th grades are invited to write an original poem,
rap or song for National Poetry Month. Winners will receive signed copies of The
Strange Attractor by Robert Morgan, lunch at On the Same Poem Luncheon
and a Barnes & Noble gift card. Entry forms are available at any Library location,
from your student’s teachers and media specialists, or you can print one now. For more information, call or email Candace
Brennan at 703-3022 or brennacm@forsyth.cc
or Meg Harrison at 703-3081 or webbmm@forsyth.cc.